Abby Dahl Strikes again! Plagiarism Alert!

[Wifetheif]

I expanded and re-edited my two-part, highly rated story "Barbarian Bride" into a novel length Kindle book in 2016. About a year passed between chapters (writing time). Today I get a letter from the kindle folks that Abby Dahl has published the first part as her own work under the title "Bait" in 2015, shortly after it first appeared on literotica.com. By complete coincidence out title designs are similar. Anyway, it looks like I may lose the rights to sell my OWN work for profit with Kindle if I do not prove authorship! Not that the book was selling in any great numbers but I feel royally peeved! As an alert to other L.com authors, I note that "Abby Dahl", who cleverly does NOT post herself (or himself) as an author but rather as "narrated by" I don't think that dodge will hold up. This thief has two other, no doubt stolen works, Do any of these look familiar?

The Stranger: an innocent wife's first encounter into being shared.

The Gem: Erotic Science Fiction "Erotic Abby is a normal girl who possesses a very unique gem. It gives her powers to reshape herself and those around her in any way she wants. But, with any power, there is a cost."

I suspect the originals possessed better grammar. In my case, the thief dropped one word from my title and did a simple cut and paste job to the Kindle server.

If either of those stories seems familiar, take notice and take action!

Wifetheif in real life James Elfers author of non-fiction and erotica. (Not the same thing!)

 

[Bramblethorn]

By my understanding, it's against Amazon self-publishing rules to charge money for a story that is available cheaper elsewhere.

If your story is still up on Literotica, the good news is that you can use this rule to get the thief shut down without having to prove copyright ownership. The bad news is that it'll probably also prevent you from charging for your version of the same book.

If your story is not still on Literotica, then I think your options are:

(1) pay to register copyright, then show Amazon your copyright. (If the thief has already registered, you're screwed, but it's highly unlikely that they have.) By my understanding, registering late means you can't get damages for violation that happened before you registered, but you can enforce your rights from that point on.

(2) write this one off, and next time make sure to publish the Kindle version early.